French privateers and Yank flattops
140313-N-ZZ999-004 MEDITERRANEAN SEA (March 13, 2014) The French navy frigate FS Cassard (D614) breaks away from passing alongside the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) during a scheduled exercise. George H.W. Bush is on a scheduled deployment supporting maritime security operations and theater security cooperation efforts in the U.S. 6th Fleet area of responsibility. (US Navy Photo by Cmdr. Tom Winkler/Released). Click to embiggen.
Named after the famous 17th century French naval officer and privateer Jacques Cassard, the French ship shown here was the lead craft of her two-vessel class of DCNS SA-built “AA (air defense) destroyers.” Basically an improved version of the 1970’s designed Georges Leygues class of ASW frigates, she is more rightly classified at 4500-tons as a guided missile frigate. With her single Mk13 one armed bandit (with elderly 40 SM-1MR missiles), 8 Exocet MM40 antiship missiles, Creusot- Loire Compact 100mm/55 Mod 68 DP gun (seen on foredeck) and suite of ASW torpedoes and small guns, she is comparable to the US Navy’s Oliver Hazzard Perry class of FFGs, which are now rapidly retiring. Commissioned in 1988, the French Navy is intending to pay off Cassard in 2020.
Such is the way of the warship.